Harriet Hageman

📞 (202) 225-5531

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The House votes 235-191 to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for three years, covering the remainder of Trump's term through approximately 2029. The vote is bipartisan — 22 Republicans oppose the measure on privacy grounds, while 42 Democrats vote in favor. Section 702, first authorized in 2008, allows U.S. intelligence agencies to collect the communications of foreign nationals located outside the country without a warrant. A major controversy surrounds the FBI's ability to search Americans' data swept up incidentally under the program without obtaining a warrant — a reform privacy advocates in both parties have long demanded. The House bill does not include a warrant requirement. Instead it adds modest guardrails: attorney approval before targeted reviews of Americans' data, written justification for each query submitted to the Director of National Intelligence, and criminal penalties of up to five years for misuse. Speaker Mike Johnson attaches an unrelated ban on the Federal Reserve ever creating a Central Bank Digital Currency to the bill as a concession to conservative holdouts. Senate Majority Leader John Thune calls the CBDC provision a "poison pill" and says it cannot pass the Senate. The program is set to expire at midnight April 30, leaving the Senate little time to act before the deadline.